Historic Decklists for the Qualifier Weekend - November 2021

The MTG Arena Qualifier Weekend will take place on November 6th and 7th, again in the Historic format, and that's what we're talking about today.

We had some lists that made 7 wins on the 2nd and got places for the Innistrad Championship, such as Mono Green Stompy, Jeskai Creativity, Jund Citadel, Izzet Phoenix, Selesnya Humans and Golgari Food, used by the Brazilian Lucas Caparroz. I'm going to talk a little about these lists and others that, I think, are good options for the tournament.

The Qualifier Weekend's metagame from October to November is unlikely to change much. A novelty that has been doing very well is Golgari Food, even getting a spot for the next Championship.

For the rest, decks that rely on graveyards are on a bad spot due to the extensive use of Soul-Guide Lantern in the main deck and combos seem to be becoming popular in the format due to the lack of a strong control or a very explosive and consistent aggro as Gruul once was.

This deck's plan is to gain life draining with Cauldron Familiar + any way to generate food tokens, which can be done with Gilded Goose or Witch's Oven, or even hitting with a Ravenous Squirell which is extremely synergistic with the deck's food mechanics. Also, The Meathook Massacre is another very synergistic card that deals 2 damage with every cat oven activation. It is often possible to take lethal damage out of nowhere with 1 or 2 squirrels on the board + Cat and Oven because with each sacrifice, the squirrel grows.

The deck is naturally good against aggro because it has Cat-Oven to block and drain life, it gains a lot of life from food, and Massacre is insane against any creature deck. The advantage of this Golgari is that it has a low curve and can get back cards like Trail of Crumbs with Lurrus, generating a lot of value in the late game to maintain its card advantage throughout the game.

Deadly Dispute is another essential card to generate value and speed up your plays, in addition to having synergy with the squirrel, as it generates two treasure tokens to increase the number of turns in the turn and, at the same time, increase the squirrel sacrificing those tokens.

Another great choice is Jund Citadel. Since the beginning of the Historic format, the deck has been showing its strength and this combo version without cat, oven, trail and goose can basically win the turn that Bolas's Citadel comes into play.

The objective of the deck is to cast the Citadel as quickly as possible. For this, we have several dorks and creatures that generate treasure to ramp, in addition to Priest of Forgotten Gods that generates two black mana when we activate its ability. To improve the Citadel, we have 4 Woe Strider and 2 Yawgmoth, Thran Physician to clear the top or draw cards.

It's important to note that this deck is a Citadel combo and not a normal Sacrifice deck, so you have to keep in mind that playing a Midrange game is almost never good, the goal is to put the Citadel on the board and win on-spot.

This Championship-qualified Mono-Green doesn't feature innovations, but it's a deck that literally goes over the top when there's not a lot of hate, like Aether Gust and black sweepers — Extinction Event and Shadows' Verdict, which exile everything.

As I always say, any pile of small creatures that runs 4 Collected Company has the potential to be good because the instant is simply broken and the Mono-Green creatures are large, out of range for many red removals.

The deck, being off the radar, makes it even better because the main aggro at the moment is Selesnya Humans, which is easier to hate out. Also, Mono Green has a fireball called Primal Might that can win the game out of nowhere.

Another deck qualified for the Championship was Jeskai Creativity. I honestly don't like it that much because decks with Indomitable Creativity are known enough that everyone knows how to play against it. However, the deck is excellent against aggro because it is virtually impossible for these decks to get around a Sierra’s Emissary. Mono Green is an example of this, while Selesnya can remove it with Giant Killer // Chop Down.

The interesting thing is that this list has 2 combos, the Creativity and the Mizzix's Mastery and Magma Opus, which can surprise opponents who side against one combo, but not against the other or do not have enough sideboard for the two combos.

Niv-Mizzet Parum, a card we see more and more on the sideboards of blue and red decks, is a great post-side card to beat both control and aggro, especially against white decks that should side-in Rest In Peace, leaving Mizzix useless.

Selesnya Humans has been quite hated-out for being one of the top decks for a few weeks now, but it's still a good choice. An interesting update would be to put 1 or 2 Portable Hole in the main deck in place of Katilda, Dawnhart Prime which has been less played.

The main deck can focus more on aggro mirrors and less on mid/combo/control, leaving Elite Spellbinder on the sideboard and bringing the fourth copy of Skyclave Apparition or Brutal Cathar.

The Izzet Phoenix version with Smoldering Egg and Archmage's Charm is gradually replacing the Sprite Dragon versions as it has a higher ceiling with the Egg and is better against aggressive decks thanks to the 0/4 wall that transforms into a dragon that clears the board with some cheap spells. The deck is a little slower with Egg and Charm, but at the same time, this brings a stronger late game.

I don't think this version is much better than the other because the Egg takes a long time to transform with cheap spells, besides being a terrible topdeck because it doesn't do anything by itself. It's also bad to take 4-5 turns to transform the creature if it dies right after, throwing away all previous turns focused on preparing the board for it.

Finally, Jund Food is still a great option and very safe being good against aggros and excellent against Golgari, as Jund has Mayhem Devil to win this match.

For that list, I believe Maelstrom Pulse can go to the main deck instead of Thoughtseize and swap 1 Fry for another Pulse to focus on the Food and Aggro matchups.

Regarding other decks, Selesnya Enchantress might be a reasonable option, but it's not good against the Food/Sacrifice base or the format's random Control lists, so I don't indicate the archetype.

Gruul Shaman is the kind of deck that, when everything goes well, is wonderful, but on average, it doesn't do much. For those who have doubts and/or don't know much about the format and want an explosive deck that roulette wins, it's a good option.

Graveyard decks that don't deal well with serious hate, for example, any deck with Dreadhorde Arcanist and Mono-Red Madness seem bad choices because almost every deck has Soul-Guide Lantern or Rest In Peace on maindeck.

I hope the lists help whoever is playing this week's Qualifier. Any questions, comments or feedback I'm available in the comments below.